Chapter 3: The outside world.

"Definitely, I've never seen someone as perceptive and fast thinking as her."

"Look at you, all happy and proud, it's also your marriage today, you're a really lucky man, aren't you?" replied the big man while playfully punching his old friend on the arm.

"You could say I am." Bubbled the white haired man contentedly.

"I'm really happy for you, I can't wait to see some small Laurences running around, who knows, if you make enough, one might even be smarter than your big one."

"That'd be difficult, now, about the other thing you wanted to talk about, I won't make decisions about my daughter's life without her permission, sorry."

"No worry, I saw how she looked at my boy, there wasn't even a spark of interest, I won't try to force things that aren't meant to happen." sighed the bigger man.

"We can't know the future, sorry now, but I have a wife to marry!" left the man with a peal of laugher, he was also curious what the gift his daughter prepared was, but that'd have to wait until later.

The ceremony was great, filled with flowers my father gathered himself from outside the walls as I used wind magic to scan the area, lest some beast found us unaware and attacked.

The food was great too, most merchants brought a speciality from some other armored city, giving the banquet a great deal of variety.

The ceremony was simple, the couple would swear their love for one another and seal the deal with a kiss in front of everyone as witnesses.

As soon as they sealed each other's mouths, I knew was the right time to attack.

"And now everyone, look up!" I shouted for everyone to hear, I've had two months to train for this and I was going to make it perfect.

I concentrated more than ever in my life, not because of the power of the spell, but because of how complicated the effect I wanted to produce was.

I had used attack spells before, they were filled with power, but thad a relatively straightforward effect, like cut or burn.

But this time it was different, I was using a multitude of spells, none of them powerful enough to injure someone, but together it was a different story.

I was using as much mana as it was needed to kill around ten beasts in a single go, by powering around five spells, all of which operated in separate manners to create a single cohesive whole.

Every guest and the celebrated couple watched on as in the sky a hail of butterflies appeared from nowhere, all of different colors and made of different elements.

Some were made of water and released a feeble mist wherever they passed, some were transparent and made of wind and travelled in specific patterns, other were made of flames and released a warm light.

I after having them do a few series of seemingly random movements that I had practiced until I felt nauseous, I had them form a single circle above my father and Sophia and spin around them rhythmically.

Finally, I sent them to the sky and merged all of them in a single point, which then exploded in a tempest of petals I sneaked in with wind magic while nobody was looking.

I released the spells and everything faded into particles of light, leaving behind a rain of petals, slowly falling to the ground.

I had to admit that this show was my most impressive feat of magic to date, which made me feel immensely proud, the thought of failing never entered my mind, I had to be perfect.

And perfect I was, just looking at father and Sophia's smiling and laughing made it worth the tiredness that I was feeling as my mana was completely drained from my body.

I collapsed on a nearby chair and I went to sleep, content in my achievement.

When I came to, I found myself back in my room.

I stood up and did a little stretching to wake up my body completely, I yawned and looked outside the room's window, just to see that it was morning.

I left my room and made my way to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat and drink a glass of water to wake up my mind, but when I entered the kitchen I realize that two other people were already up making breakfast.

"Morning" I mumble as I get myself some water.

"Good morning Avys!" Replied a practically glowing Sophia while my father mumbled a greeting the same way I did in response.

Neither of us was a morning person, but he looked like I did when I passed the entire night without sleep to practice magic while Sophia looked like she just woke up from the best sleep in her life.

I shrug, maybe she went to sleep early while he partied too hard.

We eat breakfast together, it was delicious as usual.

Before I could leave to take a morning stroll, my father stops me "Oh, Avys? We will stop the trips for two weeks, we'll be enjoying a bit of an honeymoon in this timeframe"

"Sure, have fun" was my disinterested reply, he seemed happy so I was the same.

A year passed and I became ten, in the meantime father and my new step mom seemed to become closer than ever.

"Hey Avys, tomorrow we're leaving to Kilbury, make sure you're prepared."

This was unusual, we rarely went to places other than Rockkeep.

"Did something happen with Rockkeep?"

"Nothing of the sort, I just asked Arnold to go in his place because I heard a rumor I'd like to confirm in person, apparently some people from outside the Wild Lands are currently in Kilbury"

"From Outside? Really?"

Never had I heard about outsiders coming here, I knew that something existed outside the Wild Lands and that the outside was exponentially better than here.

A place where people didn't need barriers and high walls to protect themselves from beasts attacking a hundred times a day and were merchants didn't need to be mages just to survive, it seemed too good to be true.

"I see that I got your curiosity, make preparations, we leave at sunrise."

"Sure."

The journey to Kilbury was longer than the one to Rockkeep, but it was also less dangerous, the two cities were in two opposite directions and the concentration of beasts near them is different.

For that reason, going to Rockkeep was assigned to father and a few of the other powerful ones.

The journey to Kilbury was ten days long, so we had to prepare a larger amount of food than normal, but nothing out of the ordinary.

The trip was peaceful, much more peaceful than what I was used to, being attacked only once a day felt weird when I was used to at least double this much, but it felt refreshing.

I even got bored after some time, I used wind magic to check the surroundings once every five minutes to regenerate the mana I used, but most of the time there was no movement in a radius of ten kilometers (6 miles).

"Daaad, I'm bored"

"Didn't you bring any books with you?"

"Yeah, but I just finished the last one, and I have an itch to research something new, I still have to realize how to make water that last after I take back my magic." I said while lying down and looking at the sky.

"Than you can research that, can't you?"

"Yeah, but I have no idea h…"

I stopped mid sentence while looking at a specific object in the sky.

Dad worried at hearing that I stopped talking so he turned around to look at me.

"Dad, what are clouds made of?"

At my question, on his face a smile blossomed "They are made of water vapor, dear."

In the library at their house there weren't any books on real advanced magics like forming water, he himself had to learn this kind of things on his own.

But he still did it when he was far older than her, every time she discovered things like this he realized how much of a genius the child he found all those years ago actually was.

"And where does that vapor come from?"

"Well, very small amounts of water from the ground rise slowly up in the air, from there it condenses in vapor and then into clouds."

"Is that so… Then…" I raised my hand into the air and concentrated.

I used the mana and dispersed it into an invisible mist around me and willed it to gather all the water in the air into a single point.

And finally, a question that bothered me for years was answered by a passing cloud.

I looked at the blob of water floating in front of me, then I started rummaging in my backpack, retrieving a cup from it.

I will the water to enter the cup and then release the magic.

The water didn't disperse, I did it.

"Ahah, I knew it was only a matter of time before I discovered it, I'm the best!" I declared proudly with a laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, lower your tone before we're spotted by some beast." replied my father with a complex smile on his face.

He was happy because his daughter accomplished such a task, but he felt bitter because she did it as a ten year old, ten years younger than when he did it.

'It won't take long before she gets better than me, after that I won't be able to protect her any longer.'

But for now, he'd just be happy for her, even if she only took a year to overtake him he'd be immensely proud of her.

"Hey dad," I asked after the delight from my discovery cooled down a bit, "Have you ever been to the world outside the Wild Lands?"

"Yeah, a long time ago, I wanted to find out what awaited us out of this cursed place"

"Then why did you come back?"

"Because…" he struggled to find the appropriate words, "because this is my home, the Wild Lands were where my family and friends were and I wouldn't give up on them for anything in the world"

'Ohh, that sounded really cool' I thought to myself, missing my father's point completely, I would realize what those words really meant only years later.

"And how was it? Is it like the stories?"

"Better, the things I saw there were very different from how they are here, there are places without trees, enormous plains without a living being in sight other than grass.

It's a place where non mages can travel from one place to another without the fear of finding beasts ready to eat them at every step, It's still dangerous in some areas, but it's livable.

There are even small cities called villages, those don't have high walls or magical barriers, but they can still live a nice and carefree life." He retold as he remembered.

"I once saw an enormous expanse of water unfit to drink, called a sea, it was filled with aquatic life forms and mysteries, I saw a forest with trees far taller than the ones here.

I saw people with very different looks, people who lived in mountains and loved to drink and forge weapons, people who lived in forests in full contact with nature, even people with green skin that loved to fight with others as entertainment.

There, the land is divided in different countries, made up of many cities, not like here were every single city has their own rules.

The countries are ruled by a person, called the king, and in their court the king decides the rules for his kingdom."

That sounded very weird, how could they communicate the new rules between each others?

Did they send someone to bring them to every city, or village?

That sounded really inefficient, but I really started feeling that I needed to go there and see for myself.

"But there are many other problems there that we don't have here."

"Like?" I asked with curiosity, I had never heard about problems, the fiction stories described the outside as a paradise.

"There, they don't have any problems with the beasts, the real problems, are the other humans."